


begin again

by captaincastello



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Multiple, Second Chances, Sheithlentines 2017, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 14:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9825005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captaincastello/pseuds/captaincastello
Summary: Shiro and Keith meet again at a wedding.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rollingjules](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rollingjules/gifts).



> suuuuper late to the party, but i'm finally posting it!! ;;-;;
> 
> tbh, one of the reasons it's late is because i was never satisfied with it, tho i tried real hard to mash up the three things on the wishlist because all just seemed to make their own story altogether, and i couldn't resist: ~~garrison~~ study date (more like sparing date), first kiss, and some hurt/comfort. :)
> 
> i hope you like it <3 <3 also, belated happy sheithlentines!

“Give us a smile, Sendy,” Shiro says as he takes multiple shots of the groom and groom standing by the stage where the band is playing. Instead of exactly doing what he says, Sendak flashes an unusual embarrassed grin, too high on marital bliss to actually spare a scowl for the silly nickname.

“Not in front of the husband, Shiro,” he says through tight lips, a light pink tainting his cheeks. Beside him, Haxus hides an amused laugh under his palm.

“Come on, it’s not every day you get married,” Shiro says as he takes a step to the right to get another angle. A decade later, and he still calls this grown man by his much dreaded college moniker.

Sendak – when Shiro first met him at university, they weren’t immediately chummy nor on neutral friendly terms – in fact, there was a bit of animosity on both sides because the then captain of the Judo club, Sendak, was instantly pitted against the star newcomer. It was only when Shiro accidentally discovered about Sendak’s secret relationship with fellow club member Haxus that the acid started to dissipate, and an unforeseen friendship grew in its place instead. Rivalry turned into friendly competition, and the rest was history. The couple stayed in touch with Shiro even after graduating earlier by a couple of years, and now, a decade later, invited him to be the main photographer for their wedding.

“So, how have you been?” Sendak asks him when Haxus is taken from them by his side of the family to the dancefloor. “We honestly thought we’d fail to get you from your trip to the East.”

Shiro had immediately taken off on a self-sponsored worldwide photography tour after his graduation. Trying to catch him online had not been easy.

“And miss the cheesiest wedding of the century? No way,” Shiro responds as he smoothly takes a glass of champagne off a tray of a walking attendant. “I still can’t believe it took you _this long_ to finally put a ring on his finger.”

“You know me, everything has to be in order first,” Sendak says, a soft nostalgic smile playing on his lips as he watches his husband talking animatedly with the relatives. “I wanted all to be taken care of before settling down, for him.”

“You’ll make him happy,” Shiro states rather than ask or imply, because he knows Sendak and Haxus too well by now after all the heated knuckle punches they exchanged on and off the sparring mat.

“Because that’s all he deserves, and more,” Sendak replies. Then he turns to face Shiro full on, an eyebrow arched mischievously in his direction. “Didn’t bring a plus one with you?”

Shiro chuckles into his champagne glass first before shaking his head in response. A comfortable silence settles between them as Sendak quietly nods and regards Shiro’s answer.

“Well, that’s a shame,” Sendak chuckles. “I mean, nothing against being single and all, but you still definitely have it even at, what, thirty? I’ve spotted both ladies and a couple of gentlemen giving you _the stare_ within the past hour and a half. You don’t even have any idea how many people have asked me for your name card.”

There’s no lie in that, in fact Shiro has noticed some suggestive looks thrown his way – for a man a couple of years over thirty, he has received his fair share of surprised wide-eyed slack-jawed responses once he reveals he’s still single. Granted, he has met and had fun with a small number of strangers in foreign countries, but never stayed for a committed relationship.

It’s not that the thought has never crossed Shiro’s mind, or that he wants to play around while he’s young – more like he just hasn’t found the one he’d like to spend his life with.

Or he already has, once.

And he might not have done things right because he has lost the one, and none he’d found in the entire world could ever fill the void that person has left.

Except Shiro really shouldn’t be thinking about such miserable self-centered things in this auspicious merry event. He pushes the thoughts away, packs every hurting thing in a bottle and throws it deep into the back of his mind.

“Well, let’s not make this about me, Sendy, it’s _your_ night after all,” Shiro says as he places his empty glass down a table. Sendak is about to fire a good-natured retort but Shiro quickly pulls him by the arm towards his husband waiting in the middle of the dancefloor.

“It’s time for the cake,” Haxus says once he’s got his groom in one hand.

Suddenly, as if on cue, the entrance doors spring open to reveal an incredible 7-tier round wedding cake, which seems to be wheeling itself in because its massive bulk successfully hides the Head Chef and a couple of sous-chefs pushing it from behind. The collective body of the grooms’ friends and relatives all erupts in choruses of oohs and aahs as the magnificent tower of intricately designed pastry passes by to be met by the married couple themselves in the middle of the hall.

“Wow, how big is that thing?” Shiro asks as he joins everyone in appreciative applause.

“That’s what he said,” Sendak mutters with a straight face, which earns him a playful nudge to the side of his gut from the husband.

Shiro laughs as Haxus pulls a blushing Sendak by the hand to pose beside their amazing cake. More blissful memories are captured within the next couple of minutes, of the happy couple themselves to some group shots with family and friends. Once or twice Sendak yells over for a nephew or friend to take a shot with Shiro as well, so that he’s not absent in the final albums.

“Hey, K, you have to get in the shot too,” Sendak yells after everyone has gotten their picture taken, and Shiro back with his DSLR camera in front of the couple. “It’s _your_ cake after all.”

It takes Shiro a moment to realize his friend was yelling for the Head Chef still standing behind the cake – the cake he’s heard so much about through emails because apparently that’s what Sendak and Haxus thought to tantalize him with. They still remember Shiro’s penchant for small cakes back in university.

Slowly, a quiet slender man in a toque blanch and chef’s uniform steps out from behind the tiered pillar of confectionary goodness and presents himself into the light. From behind the camera lens, Shiro’s entire world stops.

There’s no definite way to describe it – it’s almost like a simultaneous malfunctioning of unrelated things – time, his lungs, the part of his brain designed for speech all have momentarily forgotten their basic functions at the sight of raven hair tied up in a ponytail, a set of lips he’s only been intimately acquainted with a single time, a pair of deep amethyst eyes reflecting him.

There he is – his once was and still is, who could have been but never was, his greatest happiness and deepest regret, the one that got away.

In front of him, Keith looks like the same version of lost and relieved, shaken and pleasantly surprised.

“Shiro?”

Haxus’ voice is the anchor that pulls him back down to reality from his sudden reverie, and Shiro profusely blinks the dreamscape away, only to still find Keith standing in front with his college friends. Oh, so it’s real. Keith being there, sharing the same space and air with him, _is real_.

“Do you know each other?” Sendak says, a knowing look in his eyes. Shiro’s delay in responding only helps him put two and two together.

“We were in the same dojo back in high school.” – it’s Keith who answers, and Shiro is almost blown away from the almost foreign yet still familiar timbre of his voice. They’re both holding their breaths, holding each other’s gazes.

“Small world,” Haxus comments, and he now shares the same look as his husband.

“Sure is,” Sendak nods.

Shiro awkwardly clears his throat and lifts the camera back to his eyes. There’ll be more time for talking later, hopefully.

“Anyway, let’s have another smile, Sendy.”

 

 

 

 

 

_Shiro._

Keith swings his fist, hard, feels the stinging force of impact as his knuckles fiercely land against Shiro’s open palm. Shiro grunts – it’s not exactly Keith’s strength that knocks him but the tenacity that wasn’t there yesterday – the surprise evident in his eyes as he staggers for a quick split second yet instantly finds his footing on the training mat.

Keith knows he’s still got the element of surprise and doesn’t waste another second before he unleashes his next move; with his free hand he clutches onto Shiro’s arm and successfully launches the larger man onto his back and in the air. Propelled upward, Shiro feels weightless, until his body hits the floor with one loud thump, like an enormous tree felled by the wind. The harsh landing knocks all the air out of him, but it’s the pair of conflicted amethyst eyes that pin him down on the ground.

Above him, Keith is breathing laboriously, perspiration matting his hair and shirt flat against his skin. The hanging lamp above his head bathes him in an almost theatrical glow.

Fiery, graceful, beautiful.

And somehow… angry.

Shiro knows he’s angry. He just can’t quite figure out why.

“I guess that’s enough for today,” Keith says, already turning his back and heading for the showers.

Shiro looks at the clock hanging in the wall. It’s still a half hour until their routinely after-curfew sparring session ends – a small privilege his uncle allowed him for assisting in the dojo. It’s also the only time he gets to spend with Keith, what with them being a couple of years apart, and being on separate clubs at school – him in photography, Keith in economics.

“Wait,” Shiro calls after him, and is already on his feet to catch up to his friend. “We’re not done yet, buddy.”

Keith stops but doesn’t turn around when he answers.

“Yes, we are. You have preparations to make, right?”

Then it clicks – college. Shiro is moving away for a university away from home. The letter just got in this morning, the name list of graduating students and the exams they passed tacked to the bulletin board. Is that why Keith seems agitated, unwilling to meet his eyes?

“Keith—”

And that’s when he sees it – the hurt, the… longing? The deep sadness burning in Keith’s eyes, as if he’s doing everything just to keep himself from disintegrating. The transparency, the raw emotions and teen angst unfiltered and uninhibited.

Keith has allowed Shiro to see his vulnerability, his pain.

Shiro’s body moves before he can stop himself.

 

 

 

 

 

_Keith._

 

Without any semblance of warning nor preamble, Shiro pulls him into an unexpected embrace. Keith swears he almost feels the space between them virtually disappear, feels something hardened solid within him helplessly crumble away like dust in the wind once Shiro’s warmth hits him, once Shiro’s arms envelop him like a protective shroud. They’re pressed against each other close enough that Keith feels Shiro’s heart beating madly against his own.

Shiro’s hand flies up to Keith’s head; palm cupping the back of his neck, fingers lost and gently tangling themselves in his dark hair. Everything in Keith melts, from his knees and the balls of his ankles, to the hardened stone in his chest, he melts into Shiro’s comforting warm hearth. Lets his head fall between Shiro’s chest and collarbone. Allows himself to breathe, to be held the way he’s never used to being held. For a moment, they are quiet, still.

Keith doesn’t know when he’d clutched onto the back of Shiro’s shirt, but when he lets go, his knuckles have turned white from holding on too tightly. He keeps his head bowed, keeps all the swirling thoughts and wild emotions bottled up when embarrassment takes a good hold of him. How does anyone follow up after an embrace like that? He’s never laid himself bare – despite not spilling any words – to anyone for a long time.

Shiro suddenly clears his throat, and Keith’s instant reaction is to look at him.

“I-I’m sorry, I don’t know why I did that.”

Keith isn’t sure why he does the next thing – maybe it’s the way Shiro, a big man of thick well-built anatomy, suddenly caves in on his shoulders in innocent embarrassment; maybe it’s the way he stutters when he professes to the suddenness of his action, the raw honesty in his voice that mirrors the way he’d held Keith just a minute ago; maybe it’s the way Shiro can’t look him in the eye or how he’s scratching the back of his neck not knowing what to do with his hands. Maybe it’s nothing and everything, maybe he doesn’t need to overthink or grasp for reasons why he’s pulling Shiro down by the collar and smashing their lips together.

Inwardly, Keith makes a silent thankful prayer that his nose doesn’t bump Shiro’s and instead settles nicely along the ridge of his cheek because the gravity of his sudden lip attack is sinking in real deep into his bones now, and this – is this how you follow up after a sincere hug?

Keith doesn’t step back as much as pulls away from where their lips are connected, and when he does he realizes how much he has never hated air.

“Now we’re even,” he reasons to the floor because looking directly at Shiro right now feels like staring at the sun. “I don’t know why I did that either.”

Before another word can be spilled, before he’s tempted to look up at Shiro’s disappointeddisgustedbetrayedangry face through his eyelashes, Keith quickly turns on his heels and heads for the door. A split second later, his mind is still too hazy to decide whether to be relieved or nervous about the sound of footsteps running after him.

“Wait!”

Like lightning, warmth spreads fast where Shiro’s hand latches on to Keith’s wrist.

He won’t let go.

“Keith,” he says, voice barely above a whisper yet his tender tone rings loudly in Keith’s ears, reverberates within his chest. Slowly, like walking on fragile glass, Shiro closes the distance between them once more, making Keith wonder if Shiro hears the thunderous clapping of his heartbeat as well.

Wordlessly, Shiro turns him around and just holds him in place, palms on his cheeks, eyes seeking eyes seeking lips seeking reason finding truth. A calloused thumb meets a chapped lower lip, and Keith melts for the second time today.

Shiro remains gentle with his hands when he holds, with his voice when he speaks.

“Properly, this time.”

Shiro tilts his head and dips down to meet Keith. Their lips only lightly graze each other when Keith inches his head away.

“Don’t. I know how this ends. You’ll change your mind eventually.”

No one really stays, no one really means it when they say they won’t leave, because they will at some point.

He’s heard enough to know that a simple promise of “I’ll always be there” is nothing but fragile glass effortlessly threatened by the slightest breeze. The sugarcoated melody of “I’ll be back” only rings as true as flying bacon sprinkled with sparkling bits of rainbows.

And yet for a moment, for an entire year with Shiro, he let himself hope.

Has he not learned anything from watching the car of his parents disappear around the bend in the road stretching away from their house, without ever returning? Has he not learned anything from sitting alone in the porch of the orphanage for days, with no one coming to pick him up? Didn’t he ever get tired of writing ‘my parents’ on a piece of paper and hanging it up on the Christmas tree the nuns set up every December that passed?

Everyone leaves. It’s his own fault for believing otherwise.

Keith waits for Shiro to let go, for the warm hands to leave his cheeks, for the protective arms to leave his sides, waits to settle for cold air once more. He knows it will be difficult – once you’ve learned what warmth is, you become much more sensitive to the cold.

He waits five seconds, ten seconds, thirty – and yet Shiro doesn’t drop his hands, doesn’t turn his back and walk away. He stays and holds Keith, holds his gaze with a deep certainty.

 

 

A second kiss happened that night.

And that was it.

The next day, there was distance, hurt, and a selfish resolve to stay away to avoid the hurt once Shiro leaves. With each day that passed, the distance grew further, until Shiro physically had to move away for college.

Even then, even after being acquainted with the feeling of getting left behind, it still hurt like swallowing a million tiny shards of glass down his throat.

Keith was never the same since.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shiro finds Keith standing alone in a balcony outside the reception hall. He has asked permission from the married couple to step outside for a moment, and thankfully they let him go without question.

Keith turns around and meets him with a wordless salutation, a small smile Shiro only now understands how much he’s truly missed.

“Hey,” he says, and it surprises him how simultaneously easy and difficult it is to fall back into ease with Keith.

“Sir,” Keith nods, and seems immediately embarrassed addressing Shiro that way like a chef to his customer, and his eyes fall to his hands as he fidgets with his toque blanch.

“I’m still just Shiro,” he responds, taking another furtive step closer. Keith only nods, as if looking back directly is taboo, and Shiro begins to wonder if it’s still too soon to be alone like this.

“Uh, I mean, if you’re taking a break right now, I don’t really want to disturb you—”

“No,” Keith’s immediate firm response breaks ripples against the thin veil of the night’s calm. He immediately catches himself and clears his throat. “I mean, you can stay.”

Shiro takes a couple more seconds just to breathe in and out, before finally taking his place three steps away from Keith – a safe distance, not too close to be imposing, not too far to fail to reconnect.

Externally, Shiro seems like he still has it together. Internally, he’s torn – he wants to skip the pleasantries and how you’ve beens and go straight to asking if Keith is with someone right now. His eyes keep falling back to his candle-like fingers gripping the railings, trying to catch maybe a tan-line of a ring, just in case maybe Keith does have one and just kept it in his pocket while he baked. He wants to know what could have been, what might have become of them, had they been more mature and open about their feelings before things started to fall apart.

“You’re skipping the final dance?”

Keith’s soft voice rips through the night air, rips gently through the chaos in Shiro’s thoughts. Again, surprisingly easy, simultaneously difficult.

Shiro chuckles, shrugs. “Already took enough pictures before I left. I don’t think anyone will exactly miss me there.”

“It seemed to me like there’s a lot of people who would have wanted to dance with you,” Keith says a little more to himself than to Shiro. Shiro glances over to him, sees him just wistfully watching the stars decorate the sky.

“How long have you been doing wedding cakes?” he ventures, scratches the back of his neck absently.

“About three years now,” Keith replies. “Met those two crazy lovebirds a year ago. I’ve been making them monthsary cakes until their big wedding invite. I can’t tell you how much ridiculous those two are – each one of them orders one for the other every time, so they always end up with two mini cakes, with variations of the same sappy messages –”

Shiro finds that he doesn’t want to utter a single word, doesn’t want to interrupt with even a casual “Really?” or “Wow” and stop Keith’s string of enthusiastic ramblings. Keith comfortably talking about himself or his work like this is more than what he’d prayed for minutes before stepping out of the hall to look for him. He can definitely spend the remainder of the night like this, listening to Keith drone on even about the most mundane things, as long as it means he can maximize on the time they’ve got to just be in the same space together.

He remembers Keith bringing him some extra cake from economics club, eating together when they can before heading for the dojo. He remembers that one Valentine’s Day in which Keith insisted there was a surplus of ingredients, hence the heart-shaped mini cake carefully enclosed in a box presented to him after school.

“Looks like you finally went and became a professional photographer,” Keith says, eyes on the DSLR camera dangling from Shiro’s neck.

“Oh, yeah,” Shiro replies, lifts the handy contraption for Keith to see. He opens the screen, which lights up to show the most recent picture of Sendak and Haxus wrapped in an embrace, stuck mid-sway in their slow dance. “Figured I should make a living doing what I loved to do, so here I am.”

“Practical, and a dreamer. You never changed,” Keith says quietly as he watches the pictures on the tiny screen.

Shiro doesn’t notice when it happens, or who does it, but they’re both a step closer than they were a few seconds ago – Keith stands close enough to look at the camera, close enough that Shiro can smell the sweet fragrance of baked pastries and the fabric conditioner of his uniform. Their faces are mere inches away, the slight distance allowing Shiro intimate inspection of the curve of his eyelashes, the bridge of his nose, the plumpness of his lips, the much more defined angles of his cheekbones. Keith has surely grown, and it strikes Shiro somewhat painful that he spent a great chunk of his life not seeing his friend grow up to be the man he is now. And yet some things still haven’t changed – until now, Keith holds the power to mesmerize him, entrance him without so much as lifting a finger.

Shiro has become too distracted, in fact, that he’s been absentmindedly clicking ‘next’ – until the succeeding pictures are of Keith and Keith alone, stolen moments of him unaware and candid as he stood by while the married couple fed each other a slice of the cake he made.

Shiro realizes his mistake too late when an equally stunned Keith turns to look at him, and in such close proximity – it’s as if all air has disappeared and nothing but his amethyst eyes remain.

“I-I’m sorry, this is, uh—” Shiro finds himself frantically grasping for words, anything to dissipate the awkward tension brutally pummeling the otherwise wonderful evening to the cold muddy ground. It can’t end like this – yes, Shiro’s absolutely certain they’re on the way to one bad possible ending, and why can’t the evening just go as smoothly as he’d hoped, without anything getting rushed in one unsubtle reckless move as such, why can’t he channel the calm and collected Shiro at all—

It’s Keith’s hand on his trembling ones that finally stop him from stuttering. It’s Keith’s eyes set ablaze against the darkness of the night that give him pause.

“Shiro.”

It’s his name in Keith’s lips – finally, after more than a decade of not seeing nor hearing from him, finally it’s not just a neutral ‘ _you’_ or a professionally distanced ‘ _sir’_ —it’s getting called by his own name that finally eases his mind.

Keith searches his face, and for the first time looks transparent this evening – his lips are shivering, eyes glassy.

“Do you—”

Then he drops it, opens his mouth for more and yet fails to say anything at all, the words stuck heavy and thick on his tongue, and yet Shiro catches every unsaid word reflected in his eyes.

_Do you think we had the chance? Do you regret what we didn’t become? Do you still think of me? Do you still want this? Do you still feel the same way?_

Shiro swallows, and yet he is unable to get rid of the lump in his throat.

Maybe they weren’t meant to love then. Maybe they were meant to love when they were both ready. Maybe the time is now.

“Keith,” he begins, his voice low and quiet, as if he’s about to disclose a secret to the entire world. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

What word was it that was used to describe someone half-crying and half-laughing? Hysterical? Crazy, half mad? Shiro can’t be bothered with flowery words right now, but that’s what’s happening – they’re both overgrown men, stupidly laughing together while tears spilled in rivulets down their cheeks, intensely crazy about each other that it drove them half mad, drove Shiro away into one half of the world just to get over Keith.

In the end, his ending is still with him.

Except, it’s not the end.

It’s their new beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> .... it just hit me that i need more sendak/haxus omg
> 
> p.s. thank you for reading!


End file.
